DCHP-1 Online

fat Nfld

• 1a n. Sealing seal blubber.

  • c1850  (1960)  There's a noble fleet of sealers being fitted for the ice./ They'll take a chance again this year tho' fat's gone down in price. . . .
  • 1933  How could they handle 300-pound harps, even get them in the boat? But they did. And every now and then they'd take a loat [sic] of fat and skins to North West River. . . .
  • 1965  . . . 2- to 3-week-old pups that are clubbed and skinned . . . for their white fur and fat.

• 1b n. Sealing sealskins and the attached blubber.

  See also: sculp ((n.))  (def. 2)  

  • 1925  . . . coils of small ropes . . . cut up into suitable lengths and used by the men as hauling lines when hauling a tow of "fat" to the ship.
  • 1933  SCULPS, PELTS OR FAT. These are the sealers' names for the skin and attached blubber of the Seals.

• 2a n. Sealing seals, especially whitecoats, as the object of the hunt.

  See also: whitecoat  

  • 1918  (n.d.)  Advantage is also taken of the maternal instinct to get the mothers as well as the young "fat," if the latter is not obtainable in sufficient quantities.
  • 1964  For the skeleton ships and crews of the once great sailing armada of wooden hulls who have gone forth to look for the "fat" we give the toast of sixty odd years ago. "God Speed, bumper trip, and long may your big jib draw."

• 2b n. Sealing in the fat, among the seal herds.

  • 1964  Once "in the fat" (among the herds), the hunters . . . all work at speed.

• 3 n. small immature herring.

  • 1915  (1916)  From the study of the growth of the Newfoundland herring it is evident that the three-, four-, five- and six-year-old herring, which to a larger or smaller degree may belong to the immature "fat" schools, must possess the esteemed qualities of the Norwegian "fat" which are caught by hundreds of thousands of barrels.